Get your wallet ready

While I was preparing for the release of Intel's Core i7 Ivy Bridge-E processors last month ORIGIN PC approached me about a system review based on the new platform. Of course I rarely pass up the opportunity to spend some time with unreasonably fast PC hardware so I told them to send something over that would impress me.

This system did.

The ORIGIN PC Millennium custom configuration is one of the flagship offerings from the boutique builder and it will hit your wallet nearly as hard as it will your games and applications. What kind of hardware do you get for $4200 these days?

ORIGIN PC Millennium

Intel Core i7-4930K (OC to 4.5 GHz)

ASUS Rampage IV Gene mATX motherboard

Custom Corsair H100i 240mm water cooler

16GB (4 x 4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1866 memory

2 x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB SLI

2 x Samsung 840 Pro 128GB SSD (RAID 0)

1TB Western Digital Black HDD

Corsair AX1200i power supply

Corsair Obsidian 350D case

Windows 8

Our custom build was designed to pack as much processing power into as small a case as possible and I think you'll find that ORIGIN did a bang up job here. By starting with the Corsair 350D micro ATX chassis yet still including dual graphics cards and an overclocked IVB-E processor, the results are going to impress.

If you haven't seen our overview of the Corsair Obsidian 350D case, you might want to check that out before moving on. It is a great little chassis with a lot of cool features with a small, space saving design. One area I am not a fan of though is the way optical drives continue to destroy the appearance of otherwise incredibly clean cases; the 350D is no different.

The real beauty is on the inside though with the mass of components on display through the large side-panel window. The cable clutter is completely hidden from the user and the layout of the system is pretty close to perfect. I would like to see ORIGIN include more options for storage expansion (the retail case has 2.5-in bays under the optical bays) for users that want to double up on standard spindle based storage.

Powering everything inside is the Corsair AX1200i, one of my favorite large capacity units that will have no trouble with the products here and offers room for expansion and upgrades down the road.

The Core i7-4930K 6-core processor is overclocked to 4.5 GHz and is cooled by a 240mm self contained water cooler that is obviously of Corsair descent, likely an H100i.

Ah man, not just one but TWO GeForce GTX 780 3GB graphics cards running in SLI? It's going to be really hard to find anyone with a better single GPU graphics configuration among your gaming friends as the only card faster today is the GTX TITAN. You aren't going to have ANY problems gaming at 2560x1600 or even 4K resolutions with this pair of these GPUs.

The Rampage IV Gene motherboard from ASUS might be mini, but it doesn't lack in features. Plenty of USB ports and Gigabit Ethernet keep you connected while the support for dual graphics cards allowed ORIGIN to plug in a pair of GTX 780s.

The backside of the case reveals the slight cable mess that was left behind. ORIGIN did as good a job as could be expected with stock parts and attempted to keep the areas you might need to access, like the CPU back plate, open and available.

Of course what is a custom built gaming rig without some LED lights? ORIGIN sent it along with some red ones along the top and it meshed well with the green LEDs on the GeForce GTX logo.

As expected, CPU performance is pretty much off the charts for a consumer and workstation system build. If you are a designer or work with processor-limited applications on a regular basis you will definitely benefit from the performance of this 6-core / 12-thread system.

Graphics performance also was impressive as we spent quite a bit of time...testing it. We played through some GRID 2, Bioshock Infinite and even Metro: Last Light at 2560x1600 and were able to average more than 60 FPS at maximum quality settings. Oh yah, and the new Battlefield 4 beta was really no match for this configuration either.

With all of these pre-built, custom made systems there is going to be some markup for the construction and support going forward. For a high end system like this, we expected the cost difference between building yourself and buying from a builder like ORIGIN to be a bit larger.

Made as close to our build as possible today, the ORIGIN PC Millennium has an asking price of just over $4200. With that you get the assurances of quality from ORIGIN, a 3-year warranty and the support of an entire team of people that are dedicated to ensuring customer satisfaction with the initial product and support for the future.

What if you wanted to build this on your own?

Using PC Part Picker I was able to construct a similar system for about $3200-3300 which puts the ORIGIN Millennium at quite a premium. We have a lot of faith in the quality and reliability of this team though so the price difference can be somewhat mitigate by that fact.

The truth is though that ORIGIN PC, and other boutique system outlets, are building PCs for people that simply don't have the time, patience or knowledge to build their own. Some users are comfortable paying a bit more and having the dirty work of testing and troubleshooting handled by someone else. And having a phone number to call if something does goes wrong can be helpful as well.

If you aren't that kind of user, this article is more about a hardware showcase. If you are that kind of user, then ORIGIN hopes that its collection of products and services will meet your needs while offering a value to you in the long run. I know that I enjoyed my time with the Millennium and its outrageous collection of components; now the only problem is sending it back...

Funny how OriginPC decided to dump AMD right at this time. Their claim? "lack of support" - lolololololololol, seriously,do they need someone to hold their hand while they insert a video card and install a driver? that claim just doesn't hold up, plenty of other builders just buy the card, install it and call the "1800...." in case of needing support. If 'lack of support' was the case, then where are all the other boutique builders crying over the same thing?

Origin promise to offer the very best for their clients they only sell high performance machines and their business evolves around this. so innovation is what they strive for and AMD wont be offering this next year with their re-branded hardware from this year. its a logical decision for Origin to make this move and the fact they shared it publicly shows that they care about their customers complaints and act on them.

If i had to nail the pro's and cons of both companies i would say.

AMD
Pro: offer better pricing, better sales team.

Cons: Not designing in the best interests of the consumer.

Nvidia
Pro: Designing in best interests of the consumer, pioneering technology, customer support, partnerships with game developers to enhance player experience.

Cons: more costly.

an example of nvidia leading the way with technology advances are things like PhysX & there new GPU based cloud that will advance nextgen MMO's

You would think from my comment that im a happy Nvidia customer but truth be told i own a AMD Radeon 5670

After two years of in use my computer would keep turning it self off, i ran a program called speccy and found my GPU running at 110c when i was playing games so i cleaned it and still the same. i bought a new GPU fan and heat sink and fitted it to my AMD GPU which fixed the issues of my computer turning off if there was no financial issues on my side i would buy Nvidia.

"Lack of Support" means help with issues that cost OriginPC money. When a customer buys an OriginPC with an AMD GPU and has problems, they call OriginPC. In simplest terms, this:
1) Hurts OriginPC's image (ie: "I bought an OriginPC and had problems")
2) Eats into Customer Support resources (time, money, etc.)
3) If issue is directly related to AMD and they don't assist with technical aspects, only choice is to RMA the card. Beyond the downtime the customer now has sending the card in and waiting for a replacement, this might not even solve the issue!

The biggest issue seemed to be AMD not telling OriginPC about R9 290x though. Having to learn about it through a livestream and watch your competitor (Maingear) be at the event must be beyond frustrating.
(Note: OriginPC, FalconNW, CyberPower, and every other "boutique" PC vendor were NOT at the Hawaii event)

The same argument you just posted could be used about any boutique vendor with any parts that they use, or that matter, any store that sells pcs or pc parts. The problem is that they chose to do that now.
You say that their biggest issue is with AMD not telling them, or rather, sending them 290x samples and not being invited to the event at hawaii. So this means they got their feelings hurt and don't want to play with AMD anymore, boohoohoohoo, and then right aftewards they give out this lame press release, and guess who comes out looking better for it? And since so many other 'boutique' vendors were not invited, and most likely didn't get 290x samples either, why are they not dropping AMD from their product line?

All the other companies are much older. They probably understand the game better. Origin is a relatively young company and threw a hissy fit and took their toys home. If they had only dropped the AMD parts from the configurator, that would have raised no flags. But to send out a press release bashing AMD, it screams immaturity. Their follow up responses seem to confirm that, as they started focusing more on saying AMD wasn't supporting them, as opposed to actually trying to back up their reliability claims.

I wonder what the temps on those two 780's. I'd prefer to see them a slot or two apart. My 2 Titans are two slots apart and you'd have to do alot of convincing to get me to put the side by side like that.

Another great video showcase Ryan! Very Powerful and beautiful system, both internal with the clean looks and external, as the 350D looks Amazing even with the Blu ray drive as I feel it goes with the Aluminum look on the front, the only thing is that the drive is horizontally Brush as opposed to the vertical lines of the case.

This 6 Core beast overclocked to 4.5 Ghz with dual GTX780's is incredible, and as u always do, you compare it to building it yourself. I understand the price premium , craftsmanship and buildtime that goes along from the boutique builders, so its worth it if you cant build it yourself, plus takes of the worries of damaging the component if your trying to overclock.

With that said, I understand Origin parting from AMD graphics cards. I read many tech articles from different sources and I've seen the headaches cause by the instability of AMD's drivers , especially in Crossfire. I've said it many time before, its their Achilles heels.

Lots of people that buy from boutique builders dont have the knowledge to build a pc themselves, thus when someone buys one mainly to get into PC gaming and chooses a dual GPU solution from AMD , then comes the game that they invested in the PC for and crashes all the time, its the Boutique builder that get the blame and not AMD.

Its no secret to us, the more tech savvy guys that AMD has had this problem for a long time now. Heck ,you even see when Linus of Linus tech Tips does a benchmark to compare gpus from AMD and Nvidia, he Always has trouble with the radeon cards misbehaving. And also almost every tech site has documented issues.

Anyhow, great looking PC from Origin and great job with the video and write up!

Very good video and review Ryan, high quality components built into a small well designed package. The price is high but at the same time you are getting the best available hardware, 3 year warranty and ongoing support is a big plus. Are you guys reviewing these systems running the latest build of windows 8.1??

Most X79 based motherboards have had support for TRIM under RAID 0 for the past 6 months. Initially, a BIOS upgrade with minimally Intel RST ROM 11.6 was required and a UEFI install of Win 7 or 8 (as far as Windows is concerned).

Since late Sept Intel also supports RAID 0 TRIM under RSTe 3.7.0.1093 and higher without the need for a motherboard BIOS update or UEFI install.